Music can be a very good way to engage English Language Learners in practicing the English Language. Listening to songs and studying songs can help students with practicing new vocabulary words and also practicing grammar and sentence structure. It can be a fun way for students to learn, especially if the teacher uses songs that are very popular with the students that she/he is teaching.
Activity One: Musical Impressions:
In this activity the teacher would bring in the lyrics of a few songs and have the students read through the lyrics. I would encourage the teacher to also start out the activity by playing a little bit of the song to get the students engaged to the activity. I found this activity on this website: http://www.eslpartyland.com/teachers/music/musicimpressions.htm I like the idea of the chart and having the students going through the songs and making rating or suggestions throughout the songs. I would definitely change some of the topics on the chart though. If I was to be doing this for students in grades k-3 I would definitely leave a section for words that students do not understand. I would come up with an activity to help learn the words that students are having trouble with. If I was doing this activity in the middle or high schools level, I would have the students find grammatical errors in the song. This would help them practice their grammar and writing skills. A teacher could ask the students to rewrite the song with no grammatical mistakes. It would be fun to see the students trying to sing a song that has no grammatical errors. I would also leave the vocabulary practice section for all students. This activity can be fun for all age groups and beneficial for English Language Learners. A teacher can make changes to this activity anyway he/she see believes will help the students. It is important for the teacher to pick age appropriate songs which the students enjoy listening to.
Activity Two: "Where is the Love"
I found the idea for this activity at this website: http://www.esl-galaxy.com/music.htm The worksheet which this activity was adapted from can be found here: http://www.esl-galaxy.com/music/Where_is_the_Love.pdf For this activity students will listen and read the lyrics of the Black Eyed Peas song "Where is the Love." I chose this activity because I believe that this song is a great song that can be used in the classroom. It can not only help ELL learn and practice the English Language, it can also help them become critical members of society who learn to help and love one another. I would start this activity by showing my students the music video of this song. I would distribute to the students a handout with the lyrics of this song in order for them to be able to follow along throughout the video. The first thing that i would do would be to ask the students to write down any words that they do not understand. We would discuss these words as a whole group and we would put the words on our word wall. After this discussion, I would play the video again and would tell the students to pay closer attention to the lyrics. After the song is over, I would distribute the worksheet to the students and have them answer the questions in small group. Students would be given some time to answer the questions in their groups. Some of the questions challenge the students to think critically, and for this reason I would be going from group to group in order to help the students with answering the questions. At the end of the class we would discuss the students ideas as a whole class. This activity can be used from grades 5-12. It can be also used in elementary classes, but I believe that the worksheet would have to be a adapted for students in this age.
Music can be a very good way to engage English Language Learners in practicing the English Language. Listening to songs and studying songs can help students with practicing new vocabulary words and also practicing grammar and sentence structure. It can be a fun way for students to learn, especially if the teacher uses songs that are very popular with the students that she/he is teaching.
Activity One: Musical Impressions:
In this activity the teacher would bring in the lyrics of a few songs and have the students read through the lyrics. I would encourage the teacher to also start out the activity by playing a little bit of the song to get the students engaged to the activity. I found this activity on this website:
http://www.eslpartyland.com/teachers/music/musicimpressions.htm I like the idea of the chart and having the students going through the songs and making rating or suggestions throughout the songs. I would definitely change some of the topics on the chart though. If I was to be doing this for students in grades k-3 I would definitely leave a section for words that students do not understand. I would come up with an activity to help learn the words that students are having trouble with. If I was doing this activity in the middle or high schools level, I would have the students find grammatical errors in the song. This would help them practice their grammar and writing skills. A teacher could ask the students to rewrite the song with no grammatical mistakes. It would be fun to see the students trying to sing a song that has no grammatical errors. I would also leave the vocabulary practice section for all students. This activity can be fun for all age groups and beneficial for English Language Learners. A teacher can make changes to this activity anyway he/she see believes will help the students. It is important for the teacher to pick age appropriate songs which the students enjoy listening to.
Activity Two: "Where is the Love"
I found the idea for this activity at this website: http://www.esl-galaxy.com/music.htm The worksheet which this activity was adapted from can be found here:
http://www.esl-galaxy.com/music/Where_is_the_Love.pdf For this activity students will listen and read the lyrics of the Black Eyed Peas song "Where is the Love." I chose this activity because I believe that this song is a great song that can be used in the classroom. It can not only help ELL learn and practice the English Language, it can also help them become critical members of society who learn to help and love one another. I would start this activity by showing my students the music video of this song. I would distribute to the students a handout with the lyrics of this song in order for them to be able to follow along throughout the video. The first thing that i would do would be to ask the students to write down any words that they do not understand. We would discuss these words as a whole group and we would put the words on our word wall. After this discussion, I would play the video again and would tell the students to pay closer attention to the lyrics. After the song is over, I would distribute the worksheet to the students and have them answer the questions in small group. Students would be given some time to answer the questions in their groups. Some of the questions challenge the students to think critically, and for this reason I would be going from group to group in order to help the students with answering the questions. At the end of the class we would discuss the students ideas as a whole class. This activity can be used from grades 5-12. It can be also used in elementary classes, but I believe that the worksheet would have to be a adapted for students in this age.